


What's left after the bullet's been fired?

by Dragunov



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragunov/pseuds/Dragunov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Shell casings.</p>
    </blockquote>





	What's left after the bullet's been fired?

**Author's Note:**

> Shell casings.

They see streets flowing with blood in cities by any other name: there is no soldier left behind by war.

The first time John Watson kills a man Sebastian Moran takes the credit. Sebastian Moran fills out the paperwork (writes 061049JUN07) and playfully tells his men to fuck off when they ask how it feels to be a hero. Watson heats water for tea, lets it cool, heats water, leaves it to cool, heats the water again, its over 100 degrees outside, he puts a paper cup of Earl Grey in Moran’s hands, says nothing, prescribes himself sleeping pills, takes one, takes two, takes four, stays awake and thinks of all the ways blood looks different, when it’s on latex surgical gloves, and when its spilling from the head wound of a man holding an AK. Pieces of brain fall to the dirt. The splatter on his Kevlar dries to an ugly dark brown.

He falls asleep after three days, and when he wakes up again, the stain is still there, and his stomach sinks, and the sinking doesn’t stop.

He was a soldier. He had bad days.

Sally Donovan says that soon, “we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one that put it there.”

Sally Donovan stands over the body of Jeff Hope and John Watson is one that put it there.

Sherlock takes him out for Chinese. 

“Hope is dead,” Moriarty says. He’s dressed in club clothes and stretched out on Sebastian’s couch, glow of an iPhone haloing his pale face; he’s texting Molly Hooper cutesy little xs and os, he’s pirating pop songs, he sends a million to Doctor Without Borders and he pays for it in blood diamonds. His background is Picasso’s Skull and Pitcher, his ringtone this week Bob Dylan’s Masters of War. He stops to smile, wiggles his toes, his hip, looks at Sebastian with a long black side eye, “shot down by the detective’s pet doctor.” And Sebastian hmms to himself (thinks 061049JUN07), goes to the kitchen, sets his kettle on, prepares two cups of Earl Grey tea, sips one, leaves the other to cool.

How does it feel to be a hero, John.

Sebastian shoots Afghanis. He shoots a Chinese smuggler and a blind old grandmother. He straps Semtex to a woman, a man, a little boy. He straps Semtex to a tight jawed John Watson, three years since 061049JUN07. “We’re good soldiers, Captain,” he whispers, “It’s just another war.”

Sherlock puts on four nicotine patches, Mycroft smokes low tar, Moriarty chews through a pack of double bubble, and John buys the milk. Sebastian kills and kills and kills, and Moriarty cleans the blood from beneath his fingernails with a Swiss army pocket knife, because Moriarty likes his possessions to be clean, “look at you,” he tsks, he coos, he hisses like a snake, “my man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course.”

John is scared of Moriarty because he’s scared of losing Sherlock, the Sherlock he loves more than his alcoholic sister, more than any brother in the army, more than himself. He’s scared of the pain in his leg, the way his fingers shake, the nightmares he sees both asleep and awake, he’s scared of these coming back.

Most of all, Soldier Johnny is scared of being forced to confront, over again, the fact that heroes don’t exist. And even if they did, Sherlock Holmes isn’t one of them.

Moriarty leaves no melody unfinished. Sing, oh muses.

Kevlar helmets, bullet resistant glasses, heat resistant gloves, knee pads, elbow pads, a tourniquet in one trouser pocket and bandages in the other, grenades, and 240 rounds of ammunition, his assault rifle, his 9mm, all the armor he wore in Afghanistan when he shot a man in the head. Jeans, a button up shirt, a jumper, his jacket, all the armor he wears when Sherlock jumps from the roof of St Bart’s. 

“Oh God no.”

Sebastian Moran packs his rifle, and wanders away from the church.

He’s sitting in Mycroft’s office, he’s in the all seeing cyclop’s den.

“And who are you?” Mycroft asks.

“No one.”


End file.
